The Man in the Red Beret

      Read an interesting article on a colorful chess master named Jude Acers. Acers is known for playing against all comers in the New Orleans Gazebo restaurant and for wearing his red beret.  Acers is a great showman and used to tour the country giving simultaneous exhibitions, twice holding the world record for having played the most opponents in a simultaneous exhibition.
      His USCF rating was 2399, just one point shy of a Senior Master title.  He got his rating mostly by playing matches against players who were rated far, far below him. This led the USCF Executive Director Ed Edmondson to freeze Acers rating at 2399 until he played in an open tournament; a mandate with which Acers never complied.  Acers hadn’t played in a tournament for nearly 40 years when he entered the World Senior Championship in 2007 and emerged with a performance rating of 2289.
      Acers barely survived Hurricane Katrina and lived in a displaced persons camp for some time but as New Orleans recovered, he resumed his customary chess table in the French Quarter.